Technical Field
The technical field relates to a 3D model printing method and in particular relates to a printing method for printing a multi-material 3D model.
Description of Prior Art
The multi-color 3D printers based on Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technologies use a single nozzle with various color pigments to perform multi-color printing.
In an example of two color printing, after a printer uses the first color pigment to print the first color portion in a multi-color 3D model, the printer switches from the first color pigment to the second color pigment of other colors. Next, the printer has to moves the nozzle to a location away from the multi-color 3D model to remove and discard the remaining material of the first color pigments in the pipe and nozzle to assure that colors are not mixed. When the remaining material is totally removed, the printer then print the second color portion of the multi-color 3D model with the second color pigments . . . and so on. Accordingly, the multi-color 3D printer generates a multi-color 3D model.
In the above methods for printing multi-color 3D model, a large amount of remaining material is discarded in each color change, and the discarded remaining material cannot be used again which generates more wasted color pigments and higher printing cost.